Since the second half of 2022, Germany's Federal Police have denied entry to significantly more foreigners at the borders with Austria and Switzerland than before, reported dpa.
There were 3,063 unauthorized entries into Germany via the border with Switzerland in the first quarter of 2023, a response from the German government to a request from an opposition party in parliament showed. In three out of four cases, the people attempting to cross the border were turned back.
According to the government response to the the hard-left Die Linke (The Left) party, which was made available to dpa, about 62% of the 3,674 people who were unauthorized to cross into Germany via the Austrian border were turned back by police.
At the border with Poland, however, where most unauthorized entries are currently detected, there have been hardly any entry denials in this period, with only three people being turned away.
To prevent people from entering Germany illegally, foreigners can be turned back directly at the border — at the land border, the sea border or at airports — or deported back to another country as illegal entrants. Last year, 25,538 people were turned back at the German border, significantly more than in previous years.
At the border with Austria, the numbers increased significantly in the summer, while at the Swiss border this development began in October. In the first quarter of this year, there were a total of 4,681 entry denials.
The number of detected unauthorized entries was significantly lower in the first quarter of this year at around 16,000 than in the last quarter of 2022, when there were around 30,000 unauthorized entries.
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
